Detecting Tutor's Hand in Applicant's Essay

By Kate Stone Lombardi

Nov. 2, 2005

It is the bane of college admissions officers: the highly polished, professionally edited personal essay that barely reflects the thinking or writing, let alone the personality, of a 17-year-old high school student.

"If it sounds like it was written by a 42-year-old attorney, chances are it was written by a 42-year-old attorney," said Lee Stetson, dean of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania.

Now colleges have a new tool to help them discern how much help students are getting on their applications: the SAT.

Since March, the SAT has included a 25-minute essay section. When reviewing an application, colleges can easily download the test essay from the College Board, obtaining a sample of the student's unedited writing. Many colleges say they plan to do so, at least in cases where there are questions about a student's writing aptitude.

In a survey of 374 top colleges and universities conducted by Kaplan, the test preparation company, 58 percent said they would use the SAT essay to evaluate whether students had received outside help on their application essays in cases where there appeared to be discrepancies in the applicants' writing levels. Thirteen percent said they would compare the essays for all applicants.

"What that is saying is, 'We know there are a lot of cooks in the soup on these application essays, and we want to make sure that the writing that you are able to produce on your own can keep up with that polished writing,' " said Jennifer Caran, national director for SAT and ACT programs for Kaplan.

Dan Saracino, the assistant provost at the University of Notre Dame, said that when the first batch of the March SAT's became available, he went online to look at the writing samples.

"I did compare the online written essay and the personal essay, and you can see the connection, and you can see when it's a forced style that's been taught by a tutor," Mr. Saracino said.

At Notre Dame, not every applicant's SAT essay will be reviewed, but the test may well be downloaded when there are questions about writing ability, Mr. Saracino said.

Given the volume of college applications, the two writing samples will not be routinely compared at most schools. But in an increasingly competitive market, the essays of borderline students are more likely to be reviewed.

"We will use them on an individual basis as we need to use them," said Marlyn McGrath Lewis, director of admissions at Harvard College. "If we wanted to get a better sense of how somebody actually expressed something in his or her own words, we certainly know where we could go to extend our understanding."

Harvard is aware that some applicants get much more help than others on their applications, Ms. McGrath Lewis said.

"At Harvard, we try very hard not to over-reward extra preparation," she said. "We try not to base the admissions decision on someone being the perfectly buffed-up applicant."

Margit A. Dahl, the director of undergraduate admissions at Yale, said the university had no intention of reviewing 20,000 SAT essays. But in instances where there is a question about writing -- for example, if a personal essay is well written, but the writing score on the SAT is low -- admissions officers may download the SAT essay.

"You can certainly tell if there are serious grammatical glitches in the essay that was written in 25 minutes, and that means that without help, this student has some real trouble with writing," Ms. Dahl said.

Some argue that comparing the two essays is unfair. A student has far more time to polish an application essay than to burnish a 25-minute response. But educators make the case that basic writing and organizational skills should be consistent between the two samples.

"Schools recognize that this is a first draft and not polished work," said Ms. Caran of Kaplan, a former English teacher. "They want to get a sense of the students' innate writing abilities, to understand the students' thought processes and ability to express themselves, and whether that expression of thought is compatible with what they are saying in the application."

Complex sentence structure, the proper use of advanced vocabulary and clear expression should all be consistent between the two samples, she said.

But even a student's work on an SAT essay can be coached, as Ms. Caran points out. Students can be taught how to write a persuasive essay under time pressure, using organizational tips and practice, she said.

But admissions officers say they can see through that, too.

"You can see the canned responses," said Mr. Saracino, of Notre Dame. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to identify that this is a pat response that is a result of Kaplan."

A version of this article appears in print on , Section B, Page 9 of the National edition with the headline: Detecting Tutor's Hand in Applicant's Essay. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe